


Waltz of the Snowflakes

by MooseFeels



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: More tags later, fairy tale AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-22
Updated: 2018-01-30
Packaged: 2018-09-11 05:27:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 17,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8956141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MooseFeels/pseuds/MooseFeels
Summary: Yuuri's wrapped up another competition (disapointingly) and he's alone in a strange city on Christmas eve, which finds him wandering, and that finds him--Yuuri accidentally (accidentally) gets himself engaged to a fairy tale prince and what's worse is that he finds himself not hating it.





	1. Chapter 1

Yuuri knows he shouldn’t be out this late, but he’s both so tired and also,  _ can’t sleep _ . December is still peak of season; major competitions either starting or ending and--

There’d been an exodus from some of his competitors to get out of Dublin and head back to their homes in time for the holiday. Phichit, of course, left as soon as the medal ceremony wrapped up to head back to Detroit to take a Geometry final and Leo apparently has a huge family in California that’s waiting for him and Chris has some kind of mysterious plans for back in Switzerland and--

So the hotel is empty. The city kind of is, too, this late on Christmas eve. Most of the bars and pubs are shuttered, the few that are open are more like clubs than the kind of place Yuuri would be comfortable in. Normally there's some kind of banquet and attendant afterparty for this sort of thing, but it's proximity to the holiday cut potential festivities short. Even the journalists seem less numerous this time, which is a relief, actually. No one to ask him about his disappointing showing. 

It’s all empty, and Yuuri feels, not for the first time, that he’s missing something. Christmas is a holiday back home but it’s a different kind of one, and it’s never been something he celebrates, but lately, the distance from Haesetsu, from Yu-topia, from  _ home _ , has been weighing on him. It doesn't help that he hasn't been doing well in competitions...well, ever. 

All this time, he's given up, and for nothing but chronic knee pain, what his ballet instructor calls an eating disorder, and a degree in art education from an American university. 

Yuuri knows he shouldn’t be out this late; he only makes bad decisions at the this time of day. But he takes a turn and then another one, and he finds himself, suddenly, in a park and--

He wishes he had his skates. He  _ doesn’t _ , also, because the surface of the ice doesn’t look finished and god only knows if it would hold his weight, but--

Yuuri feels drawn to it, like he feels drawn to all ice. 

He looks out at it, over the surface of it, and--

“Hello?” Yuuri calls out, uncertainly, in English. “Hello? Can you hear me? Are you okay?”

It looks like there’s someone out there, on the ice. 

Yuuri takes off his glasses, blinks a few times, and put them back on and--

Someone’s there. Laying on the ice, full body. He frowns and he looks around. 

This is--

This is stupid. This is how he gets himself killed. But what if they’re hurt, what if they need help, it could be hours and Yuuri doesn’t know how to dial emergency services out here and--

He steps out onto the ice, carefully. 

It holds. 

He sighs, painfully grateful for this minor miracle, before he slides and shuffles carefully out to the person, calling the whole time. 

“Are you okay? I’m going to come help you!” He says. “If you can hear me, please, say something!”

But there’s no response and Yuuri keeps going and it occurs to him that he doesn’t really know how far he’s gone across the ice; it seems so much  _ larger _ here than it did previously. But he keeps going and--

Eventually, he gets there. And he kneels down, and--

_ Oh _ , wow.

“Oh, wow,” he says. 

He’s beautiful. 

There’s a man laying on the ice, with fine, silver-blonde hair and sharp, fine features. A long, thin nose and high cheekbones. Full, pink lips. He looks strange though, and Yuuri realizes that he should have some kind of  _ flush _ or something to him. He looks so strangely bloodless but not quite cold. Like he’s sleeping, but more so. And he’s wearing such nice  _ clothes _ , a plum colored coat with epaulettes and shining gold buttons. His clothes are fitted to him, almost a uniform. 

Yuuri reaches forward, to shake his shoulders a little. “Hey,” he says. “Are you okay? Wake up.”

But there’s no response. Yuuri tilts his head, gently, to pull off his mittens and check for a pulse.

But there isn’t a pulse but his body still feels and looks animate and  _ present _ , so Yuuri takes a deep breath and he tries to remember what to do so he--

He tilts the man’s head back, to resuscitate him, and he-- for mouth to mouth-- and he touches him, with his mouth, but then--

Yuuri finds himself leaning over a man he found on a frozen lake, being kissed. 

He pulls away, shocked. Almost loses his balance, backing away so quickly, from the man who is now beginning to prop himself up, on his elbows, and who is looking at Yuuri with unrestrained, absolute  _ joy _ lighting his clear, blue eyes. 

He exclaims something in another language and Yuuri feels a stab of panic. This is too weird. This is bad. He looks behind himself, and the edge of the lake might as well be  _ miles _ away; he can’t even see it in the increasing snowfall with his glasses knocked off. 

“I’m sorry!” Yuuri shouts, nervously. “I thought you needed help, I didn’t mean to--”

“Oh!” The man exclaims. “English! Yes!” he smiles, hugely, warmly. He pulls himself up into a fully sitting position and Yuuri can’t help but notice how  _ different _ he looks. Warm and pink and  _ alive _ . “You saved me!” He exclaims. “From the curse! You saved me!”

Yuuri frowns, confused. “Ex--excuse me?” He asks.

The man smiles, hugely. Warmly. 

“ _ The prince’s slumber would only be broken by true love’s kiss _ ,” he says, and Yuuri can simultaneously hear his own blood storming and rushing around in his ears and the quotation marks around what this man is saying. 

“That’s what they said,” he says. “When they cursed me and hid me. But you  _ found _ me and you  _ love _ me and we will be  _ married _ and--”

“Who-- who are you?” Yuuri asks, his voice stumbling out of him clumsily, uncomfortably. 

The man-- the  _ prince _ \-- looks at him with yet warmer, softer, brighter eyes. “Of course,” he says. He stands, and he bows, low and gracefully, and beautifully. 

“My name is Victor Nikiforov, crown prince of the Winter Kingdoms beyond the East and past the West, and of course, your betrothed,” he says. 

Yuuri looks at him, confused, unsure, certain someone is playing some kind of sick prank on him. 

“I-- what?” He asks. 

But the  _ Crown Prince Victor Nikiforov of the Winter Kingdoms  _ then kneels down onto one knee, takes Yuuri’s hand gently, and kisses the tips of his unmittened fingers terribly gently, and says, “My name is Victor. What shall I call my betrothed?”


	2. Chapter 2

It’s not coldness but it isn’t nothing.

This is what Victor feels for a long time. He can’t really think, he doesn’t dream. There’s just a twilight space that Victor is in, and he feels.

He waits. 

Waiting is everything, until it’s not and then everything is  _ warmth _ .

Warmth is the first thing Victor feels, racing through him suddenly. It’s more than waking up, it’s waking up and realizing. It’s growing, it’s soaring, it’s becoming. It’s reaching high and going deep and it’s in all of him. Warmth is what he feels, and then he feels kissing, a little awkward (open-mouthed is a  _ move _ but he’s not here to judge; he’s here to have his curse broken). He sits up a bit, to reciprocate, to slip his tongue into the mouth when suddenly, there’s no one there, just air, and Victor opens his eyes and--

His eyes meet warm, brown eyes. The red-warm color of deep, deep chocolate or dark wood. Warm eyes that are growing further away from him, as round, chilly looking man stumbles away from him. 

“Wait,” Victor says, “Wait, don’t go-- you found me! I’m here!”

“I’m sorry!” The man apologizes, in English. 

_ Oh _ , Victor realizes.  _ Of course.  _ But it’s okay. He’s had lessons. Victor speaks, and speaks beautifully, English. 

And so Victor explains, and he introduces himself and then--

The man still looks so  _ nervous _ . So scared. Absolutely paralyzed by fear. He’s wearing dark, heavy clothes that hide him, and he has clunky glasses that cover his eyes and obscure his round, but kind face. Victor wonders if he will ever think him handsome. Victor wonders if he will be afforded the chance to love him and not just  _ be _ loved by him.

_ Come on, Nikiforov, put him at ease,  _ Victor thinks.

He smiles, his most natural, most warm, most welcoming smile. “What about your name?” He asks, gently, his fingers still resting barely at his lips. 

“Katsuki Yuuri,” he answers, stumbling over the words. “I’m-- I’m Yuuri. Just Yuuri.”

“Katsuki Yuuri-Just-Yuuri,” Victor says, teasing just a little. He shifts his grasp of his hand and pulls him upward, standing. He’s shorter than Victor by a few inches, but mostly he holds himself so  _ differently _ . Victor wonders why it is he had confidence to kiss a stranger he found on the ice but is curved inward and stammering when just trying to talk. 

“We’re on a lake,” Yuuri says, his voice panicking. “It could crack, it could--”   
Victor shakes his head, though. “No, not here,” he says. “This has been ice since time immemorial. This does not crack, Just-Yuuri, and it would never crack for me. Or my betrothed.”

Yuuri’s eyes go a little wider. “You keep-- I don’t-- it wasn’t--”

Victor smiles, though, just as someone stumbles from out of the wood and onto the ice and declares, “Your Highness!”

They drop to their knee immediately. Victor looks over a them and pulls Yuuri forward. “Come!” He says. “They’ll be so excited to meet you!”

“Who? What?” Yuuri asks. “What-- what?”   
“Come with me,” Victor says. “Let me take you home.”

And something shifts, in Yuuri’s eyes. He looks at Victor, and then he looks behind himself, at the lake that stretches forward. 

“Okay,” Yuuri says. “O--okay.”

Victor smiles, again, because this is real and it’s happening. He’s not cursed. He’s going to get married. It’s all going to happen, and the one who broke the spell is so warm and good--

Victor pulls him forward, into his kingdom.

Into  _ their _ kingdom. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> plot's coming


	3. Chapter 3

He’s in a horse-drawn carriage. 

The horses are large and silver-grey, almost blue in the light that feels like the very edge of dawn. The carriage is deep, dark blue with iron-grey adornments, baroque in their curling and shaping. 

Yuuri’s never seen anything like it; Viktor steps into it like it is second nature to him. 

Yuuri looks at it, overwhelmed, for a long moment, before Viktor pokes his head out of the door and says, “You are probably more accustomed to finer things, but I assure you, our journey will be quite brief and comfortable.”

Yuuri looks at him, and he looks at the carriage, and he turns to look back, down the snowy path Viktor and the guard led him up from the edge of the frozen lake. Yuuri looks back, and--

And he gets in the carriage, because--

Because what else is there to  _ do _ ?

The interior of the carriage is marginally warmer than outside, and the seats are plush, covered in cobalt crushed velvet. The color brings out the deep blue tone of Viktor’s suit, and something of the pale quality of his lips, his cheeks. Animated, instead of lying on the lake, Viktor is so  _ beautiful _ . Serene. 

Yuuri is dreadfully overwhelmed, like he always is. 

There’s an expectant silence in the carriage, before Viktor turns to Yuuri and says, “How did you find me?”

Yuuri bites his bottom lip, unsurely. “I was walking, and I found the lake and then you just-- you just were there. I wasn’t looking; I didn’t even know-- I don’t know--” Yuuri feels sharp panic rise up inside of himself; seize his throat. “Didn’t mean to--” It’s getting away from him, and it’s too much. 

But there’s a cool hand on his cheek suddenly, and Viktor’s looking into him with his clear, blue eyes and it’s not that Yuuri can find the thing he means, it’s that everything becomes  _ clear _ . Clear like silence. Clear like a sharp winter’s day. Clear like ice.

Viktor murmurs something , in what Yuuri thinks might be Russian, and then says, “You weren’t looking.” He smiles, ever so slightly. Roguish. Gentle. 

Yuuri nods, finding his breath. It’s cold, in his trachea, and he pulls away to cough into his arm. 

Viktor smiles a little wider. Says something else, before he says, softly, “This is better than looking,” he says. “This was fate.”

Yuuri blinks a couple times. Time passes, gently. Viktor looks almost expectant.  _ Wanting _ .

Yuuri doesn’t know what to give him; what he’s asking for.

“I’m sorry,” he eventually whispers, before he realizes that it was in Japanese, and not English. They both seem to speak English. 

“I--I’m sorry,” Yuuri says, in English. 

Viktor crooks his head slightly, as if not understanding, when the carriage stops. Viktor turns away, excitable, and the door opens and Viktor steps out, confidently, and he turns, and extends his hand to Yuuri. To pull Yuuri from the carriage and into his world.

* * *

 

Yuuri wears dark clothes that cut close to his body, made of a strange material that reminds Viktor of nothing so much as the cold taffetta of gowns at balls. It’s not a material that feels quite real, and the way it eats light is strange, too. The clothes obscure his figure; Viktor can’t get a clear picture of what Yuuri actually looks like under them. He wears gloves over his hands, which Viktor understands but--

Viktor has seen his face. And he’s heard his nervous voice but mostly to apologize or to be concerned. He’s seen his face flush, bright and anxious, seen his warm brown eyes waver with something nervous and small.

There’s something of Yuuri that is painfully vulnerable and Viktor wants to see more. 

Viktor’s going to be married to him, and it’s not that he’s not immediately enchanted by him (he is). It’s that--

Yuuri takes his hand and steps out of the carriage and he looks at the palace and his eyes grow huge.

Viktor feels himself smile. He was worried; his kingdom was beautiful, huge, glittering once. He knows that in his sleep, it must have changed; that surely Yuuri is himself from beautiful, huge, glittering circumstances, places. There is something comforting to see that Yuuri is not insulted by the palace, by the guards, by the carriage.

The carriage would have been gold, once. 

Yuuri gasps, though, looking at it. At its widespread wings, at its shining edifice. 

Viktor can’t wait for him to see the Birch Hall; the Gold Ballroom; the Velvet Hall; the mechanical organ; the collection, the gifts. 

Viktor can’t wait to see him. To know him. 

The sleeping prince, awake. The sleeping kingdom; alive. 

The guard stands in long rows leading up into the palace, at attention, tall and straight. 

Viktor walks from the carriage to the front of the Palace, with Yuuri following him, and through the doors and--

There’s an old man, in the entry, balding with grey hair. 

Viktor wishes he could recognize him, but he can’t and that terrifies him. 

“Your Imperial Majesty,” he says, his voice heavy. He bows, low, deep. 

“And my betrothed,” Viktor says, and he bows back, not as low, but respectful. 

“Of course,” the man responds. “I am Yakov Feltsman, the keeper of the Winter Palace, and your most devoted servant.”

Viktor rises up from his bow and gestures. 

“Uh,” Yuuri says, quietly. “Katsuki Yuuri. Yuuri Katsuki. Uh- um-- Yuuri.”

“The Prince’s escort--”

“The Prince’s fiance,” Viktor corrects.

Feltsman nods.  “Of course. His Imperial Majesty and his Fiance, Prince Viktor Nikiforov, crown prince of the Winter Kingdoms beyond the East and past the West to the Starlit Sea and the Dark Forests with colonies in the Bright Lands and Sovereign of space beyond the Fields We Know, and his Fiance, Katsuki Yuuri,” he announces, standing, and the door from the first room opens, and with a familiarity like the flexing of his limbs, the palace opens to him and to Yuuri. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fairytale honorifics, amirite  
> btw: pls come talk to me on my tumblr about palaces, fairy tales, and palatial structure because i'm techinically an art historian and i feel so big about that


	4. Chapter 4

Yuuri’s not sure how he got to a bedroom, but here he is. 

The walls are deep, dark blue and are covered in silver filigree that dances in the cold light filled from the huge windows. Yuuri coughs a couple time, against the dust that has been stirred by the curtains parting.

“These will be your quarters,” Viktor says. “I hope you don’t find them too small. This is only our smaller palace; I’m sure you’re more accustomed to finer lodgings--”

“No!” Yurri cries out, his voice too loud.

Viktor turns to him. 

Yuuri’s been living in a dorm room for the past five years, and before that in a room in his parents’ inn that belonged to his father when he was a boy. Yuuri’s never seen something so beautiful, and he can’t really imagine that in some way it might be  _ his _ . 

He turns to Viktor, who looks  _ stricken _ .

“No,” Yuuri says, a little more quietly. “No, it’s-- it’s  _ beautiful _ .” He can’t find any words for it other than beautiful. 

It’s a huge room, with three tall windows facing out toward gardens blanketed cleanly in crisp, white snow. There’s a fireplace as tall as Yuuri and twice as wide as his armspan across from a bed he thinks he could swim in. It looks inviting and plush, covered in a blanket he thinks might be silk. There’s beautiful furniture and a large vanity and a breakfast table. 

It’s all so lush. 

He turns to Viktor. “It’s beautiful. I’ve never seen anything like it. I can’t believe it’s real; it’s so-- it’s amazing.”   
Viktor’s expression shifts, from stricken to joyful.

He smiles, broadly. “I’m so pleased,” he says. “And your view extends toward your private gardens and your closets are to the left and--” 

And he pauses and he smiles, and he says, “Can I show you-- can I show you the secret?”

Yuuri looks at him, and he nods.

He’s surprised it’s just the two of them. The housekeeper, who didn’t seem to like Yuuri at  _ all _ , showed them  _ huge _ halls and rooms and a library and a gallery of some sort, the whole time Viktor looking a Yuuri expectantly. Viktor looks at Yuuri like Yuuri is supposed to know something, supposed to feel something. Viktor looks a Yuuri with this expectation that maybe Yuuri  _ is _ someone. 

But right now, it’s just the two of them. 

Viktor smiles, and he tugs Yuuri over to a section of wall, near the bed.

Yuuri wouldn’t have noticed the doorknob embedded in the crawling filigree if Viktor had not laid his hand on it himself, and opened a section of wall into a door.

“When I was small, I used to sneak in, from my chambers, to see where my spouse would one day reside,” he says, softly. Yuuri follows him, down a short hall, to another door that Viktor opens carefully. 

“These are my quarters,” he says, pulling Yuuri into the room, which somehow is even  _ more _ opulent and  _ huge _ and bright than Yuuri’s. Everything is golden and pink and purple; the fireplace is roaring, there’s a teaset awaiting VIktor’s attention beside an open chest, dripping with materials. Viktor smiles, and he turns back to Yuuri.

“If ever, in the night, you require me,” he says, gesturing back toward the door, “I am right here.”

He takes Yuuri’s hand, gently, and bows deeply to brush his fingers against his knuckles, again. 

And this is when Yuuri feels the  _ panic _ he’s been burying for the past hours-- the questions, the  _ fear _ \-- come bubbling up to the surface. 

“Who  _ are _ you?” He asks, choking on the words. “Really? Who are you? What is  _ happening _ ? I just found you on the ice and you weren’t breathing so I did CPR and then you  _ were  _  and now-- now we’re getting married? Is this  _ real _ ? Where  _ are _ we?” He feels the panic crawl up even more. “What about my family? Where are they? Do they miss me? Will I see them again? And my  _ career _ and my coach and-- it was all over  _ anyway _ but now--”

Yuuri can never just let a thing  _ be _ , he has to be ugly. He feels his breath, speeding terribly. His knuckles ache from the pressure of squeezing his fists so tightly. 

“Who  _ are _ you?” He asks, and the sentence rips at his throat. “Where  _ am _ I?”   
VIktor’s face goes pale, before he nods a couple times, and he says, “My name is Prince Viktor Nikiforov.” His voice is serious. “I was cursed, cruelly, on my twenty-seventh birthday. I would sleep, until woken by true-love’s kiss, and my kingdom would sleep with me. You woke me up. You woke up my--  _ our _ \-- kingdom. And we will be married and-- and I won’t be  _ alone _ anymore.” He reaches out and takes Yuuri’s hands, and he looks at him with such heartstopping hope in his blue eyes-- Yuuri can’t quite breathe. 

“We won’t ever be alone anymore,” Viktor says again, softly, like it’s the only thing he’s ever really believed.


	5. Chapter 5

Viktor is eight, the first time he opens the door and creeps from his quarters to the room next door.

His parents have been gone for four years now, and he has a lot of responsibilities. He has to sit still in meetings and he has to wear uncomfortable clothes and he has to go to long lessons and he has to sit on the throne and he can’t fidget and he has to go to balls (which are so  _ boring _ ) and he has to wear a crown. Viktor has a  _ lot  _ of responsibilities, and he’s always with people (with servants or nannies or housekeepers). Viktor’s always with people, but that doesn’t seem to matter because he’s always lonely. 

Viktor is eight and it’s late at night. He should be asleep. If the nanny knew he was awake, he would be in such trouble (as much trouble as he can be in). But instead of creeping back into his bed (his big bed, so lonesome), he opens the door that leads from his apartments to the apartments that will belong to his spouse, one day. 

They are smaller than his. The bed is smaller and the fireplace smaller. It is cold in here, but Viktor doesn’t mind. He can’t wait for the fire to be lit and for the breakfast table to be full. He can’t wait for someone to talk to him, to run through the gardens with him, to hold his hand. To hold  _ him _ . 

They tell him it could be anyone, but Viktor knows in his heart that he has a husband, waiting, in his future. 

Viktor can’t wait to not be lonely anymore.

* * *

 

Viktor is fifteen and he is drunk. 

Champagne is wonderful. It fills him, to the top of his ribs and leaves him dizzy and spinning and bright. The crispness of it leaves him eager and joyful to dance, and truly, all of court is allowed a little closer than usual to him. It’s his birthday, tomorrow, and he will be sixteen. He will take the crown officially, he will be the state, but for a few hours more, he is still a  _ boy _ and not a  _ man _ . 

Viktor is fifteen and the evening is winding down and he finds himself, as he often does, alone again in his own apartments. Courtiers have been shrugged away, giggling and sleepily stumbling to their borrowed rooms. 

Viktor stumbles out of his shoes and his jacket; only in his trousers and waistcoat and shirt. He finds himself falling to the wall, to the wall that isn’t a wall. 

He raises his hand to knock, at the door that connects his apartments to the apartments that will belong, one day, to his husband. 

There is no answer. There never is.

“Dearest,” Viktor whispers, to his silence. “Dearest, are you sleeping? Do I wake you?”

He imagines his husband’s silence is wounded; is unimpressed.

“Please,” Viktor pleads. He can smell the alcohol on his own breath. “I do not mean to offend you. I am just--” He sighs. Clenches his fist before resting it softly on the door. He imagines he can almost feel a lover’s cheek under his fingers, instead of the brocaded walls. “The bed, in my apartments. It’s much too big. Especially without you, to warm it, my dear.” He pauses. He imagines him, his husband, turning, over in bed. Frustrated with him, but loving. “Please,” Viktor murmurs. “Just for tonight-- might I?”

He closes his eyes. He waits for the door to open, or for him to call his name.

But of course, these things do not come, so he turns away and falls asleep in his own bed; too large to be filled, too empty to be warm.

* * *

 

She is a curious looking woman. Her hair is dark and her eyes are playful, all mischief.

No one else at court knows her, and her name is unheard of.  _ Okukawa.  _

They stand before each other, Viktor’s hand resting easily on the fencing foil he has still secured to his hip. 

She smiles. Her mouth is very, very red, and her clothes are strange. Elegant, in a way he has never seen before.

She gives a strange kind of bow, lowering her body but not bending it. 

“Prince of Winter,” she says, and her voice is musical, but curious. “I know what it is you seek, and I desire to help you grasp it.”

Viktor feels the careless laughter tumble from his mouth before he can stop it; careless laughter is the perfect behavior for a prince, especially one like Viktor, still unwed at twenty five. 

They like him laughing much more than they like him lonely. 

“Madame,” Viktor says. “I am in awe that you believe there could be anything left I desire.”

She stays low, her head held down. “Oh, your Highness,” she sighs. “Anyone with eyes to see could tell what it is you desire.”

“And Madame,” Viktor says, feeling his head turn, “Madame, what is it I desire?”

Okukawa, she makes eye contact with him. Her smile turns knowing, and sardonic. “Your highness desires a wedding.”

* * *

 

Viktor is not afraid when Minako gives him the draught. She is kinder, by far, than he ever thought an enchantress might be. He would not call her a  _ witch _ . The word is too ugly by far for her, for this kind thing she will do for him. 

Her eyes are soft. She has been his confidant for two years now. Now, he is twenty seven, and the loneliness almost more than he can bear. 

“Soon?” He asks her, already his eyes growing heavy. 

Minako smiles, her warm smile. Her clothes and hair have changed since she has been here at court, but her smile has remained constant.

“You only need sleep, your Highness,” she says. “It will be very soon.”

And Viktor falls asleep, and he does not dream but he is comforted by the fact that when he wakes, he will no longer be alone. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> notes about aesthetics: i'm explicitly modeling the winter palace on versailles (the only palace i have had the pleasure of personally visiting) but i am also thinking of the millnonenzimmer at schonnbrunn in vienna. keywords here are: gilt, rococo, marquetry, chinoiserie, brocade, gold. viktor's clothes are drawing more explicitly from late-hapsburg stuff though-- think a baroque palace but clothes more aligned with the mid-to-late nineteenth century. in true fairytale fashion, time is fake and time-bounded aesthetics even more so.


	6. Chapter 6

Viktor looks at Yuuri, and he sees something in Yuuri slip. His eyes change, somehow, and VIktor realizes suddenly that Yuuri’s not there. He’s somewhere else. The color drops out of his face and his breath goes too quick and sweat blooms over him. Viktor can’t let go of his hand, though, and Yuuri doesn’t move to make Viktor let it go. He just kind of looks through him, still and shuddering.

“Yuratchka,” Viktor says, softly. “Are you okay?”

Viktor doesn’t get an answer beyond more shuddering breath and a weak, absent nod. He seems like he’s  _ falling _ , and there’s something to it that’s terribly unsettling. 

Viktor pulls him carefully toward a couch in front of the fireplace, and Yuuri sits down onto it but he still seems dreadfully  _ absent _ . He’s shaking a little, and it’s like he can’t find his breath quite right. Everything seems off rhythm. 

Viktor can’t quite imagine what it’s like, but he imagines Yuuri must not want to feel alone.

“Yuuri,” Viktor says, softly, “are you well? Should I find a doctor?” 

There is no answer, so Viktor decides to keep this just between them a little longer, as long as Yuuri is breathing, as long as he seems awake.

“My dearest,” Viktor says, softly. “Could I help? Do you need smelling salts or water?”

Yuuri keeps breathing, and eventually his eyes settle closed and he steadies. 

“I-- I can’t,” he says, softly. “I have to go back.”

Viktor frowns. “Go where?” He asks.

Yuuri opens his eyes, so warm and so affectionate. “I have to go home,” he says. “I have to go home. Back to Japan, to my family and-- I have a-- I have a career and my coach. I can’t--”   
“Then I’ll go with you,” Viktor says. “It wouldn’t be unusual, for me to meet your family and see your home and for them to meet me.”

Yuuri blinks a couple times, before he says, “But you don’t even  _ know _ me.”

Viktor feels himself smile. “Courtship,” he says. “I am trained for courtship. This I could do.”

He reaches out, just a little, to lay his hand on Yuuri’s knee, very gently. “We could leave tomorrow,” he says. “We could make arrangements. You could split time, between--”  _ Between your home and our kingdom _ . “We could leave tomorrow. I could court you.”

Yuuri’s eyes are so wide, so warm, so deep. 

“You would want to?” Yuuri asks. 

Viktor feels his heart balloon through his chest; feels it soar. 

“ _ Lyubov moya _ , of course I would,” he says, his voice hardly louder than a whisper. “I am so-- I am overwhelmed, by such a desire.

Viktor finds himself very close to Yuuri. 

Viktor can see him, so close he almost can’t take it. 

Yuuri, who he’s waited his whole life for. 

“What-- what now?” Yuuri asks.

Viktor smiles. “I think now, it might be dinner,” he says. “We should get you dressed for it?”

Yuuri frowns, just barely. “What’s wrong with what I have on?”

* * *

 

Everything Viktor has said, it buzzes between Yuuri’s ears while he stands in front of a large, open closet, standing on a low stool while a small woman dashes from shelf and rack to pull clothes down for Yuuri. She pulls them down and observes them and makes a low sound in her throat before returning them. And the whole time, Yuuri feels the buzzing from what Viktor said and the mounting, terrible anxiety. He knows what this is, and it’s coming. 

The small woman pulls another small woman to the side, before they have a brief conversation he can’t quite hear.

As if this is not a thing Yuuri has endured for so long.

He closes his eyes and says, as clearly as he can manage, “I-- It’s okay. I understand. None of them fit.”

He’s at the top of his season but it’s been  _ stressful _ . Business is bad back home. College is  _ hard _ and everyone is surging ahead of him, better at it than him. 

Yuuri sighs. 

He copes how he can, with the stress, and coping never quite seems like the right thing for his metabolism. 

They  _ never _ fit. 

The small women--  _ servants _ , he distantly realizes,  _ the palace servants _ \-- bob a quick, almost embarrassed curtsy, before disappearing around a corner. 

Yuuri turns, and looks at himself in the mirror. He’s still wearing his sweats from the rink, dark black. The hang on him strangely, like everything does. He has heavy bags under his eyes-- it occurs to him that he hasn’t slept since the competition, and it’s already dinner of the next  _ day _ .

He pulls his phone out of his pocket.

No service.

He slips it back in. 

He exhales, long and slow, and there’s a knock on the door before the housekeeper, from before, steps in.  

He asseses Yuuri cooly, before he says, “You cannot come to the table like that.”

Yuuri closes his eyes, and he sighs, slow and steady. “None of them-- none of them fit,” he says. “I’m too--”   
The housekeeper’s eyes flit up and down him. “Of course,” he says. “The tailor. All of them were tailored for his highness. You understand. We were anticipating-- but of course, his highness had different intentions.”

Yuuri nods a couple of times, numb. 

The housekeeper pulls a somber looking grey suit out from a rack. He hands it to Yuuri. 

“His highness is waiting,” he says. 

Yuuri holds the suit for a long moment.

The housekeeper walks away.


	7. Chapter 7

Viktor waits in the vestibule before the dining room, pacing. Nervous. They got him out of his suit for sleeping, the pink and purple one, and into his formal dining suit. It’s deep midnight blue, a little shiny from the weave of the fabric, with sleek lapels and long tails. The shirt is ivory and his shoes are shiny and stiff. Viktor knows he looks good; he should, for what he knows the palace spends on the tailors. 

But finally, the door opens and he pulls himself up tall and enters the dining room and Yuuri is there and--

Yuuri is wearing a grey suit that doesn’t fit him. It’s too big in the shoulders and oddly bunched in the middle. It’s not fitted to his shape at all; it somehow makes him look both hunched and small and too big to be there. Yuuri’s dark hair has begun to fall out of his hairstyle, slicked back, and increasingly into his soft, brown eyes, hidden even more by glasses with blue rims. 

Viktor feels a stab of sympathy. Time was, this felt overwhelming to him, too. He remembers those years shortly after they died, when it all fell to him so suddenly.

But Yuuri’s gaze alights on him, and Viktor can see the quick up-and-down of assessment he does, and he can see the faintest blush settle over his round cheeks. 

Yuuri thinks he’s handsome. Viktor preens, internally. 

He walks down the table, to Yuuri’s end and carefully pulls out his chair for him, gesturing. 

Yuuri looks at the chair, and then at him, and his blush deepens. He nods, before sitting carefully. 

“Thank you,” he says, softly, as Viktor pushes the chair in. 

“Of course,” Viktor says. He sits across from him, not longways but direct. It is a violation of the etiquette, but there are only the servants to see and Viktor has to know more. 

He will marry Yuuri; he has to know  _ everything _ .

Servants bring out the soup, a clear consomme of fish, and Yuuri looks at the bowl and at the line of forks and spoons extending to either side. 

Viktor looks at him, and he carefully picks up his soup spoon from the outer edge of the cutlery and takes a sip. 

“Ah,” Viktor says. “It has been a long time.”

Yuuri’s brow furrows.  “What do you mean?” He asks.

Viktor considers it, for a long moment. “A breakfast after a long sleep,” he says. “The consomme-- it tastes almost new to me.”

Yuuri seems to think about this for a long moment, before taking some himself. He doesn’t say anything of it, but he does frown for just a moment.

VIktor frowns in turn. “Do you not care for it?”   
Yuuri looks up, looking guilty. “No!” He exclaims. “I’m sorry. It’s just--” He pauses, as if looking through his mind for the right word. “It’s different than what I’ve had before.”

Viktor looks at him, cocks his head slowly. “What would be familiar to you? What is your favorite food, Yuuri?”

Yuuri pauses for a moment, before looking down, smiling a little nervously. “Katsudon,” he replies. “Fried pork over rice, with egg. We make it, at the inn. Back home.”

Viktor looks at him, for a long moment, studying him almost. 

“You have been far from home,” he says, eventually. “For a long time?”

Yuuri looks almost startled, but he nods. “For my-- my career. I had to be away from home for...for a long time. To study. I haven’t been back in almost five years.”

Viktor’s eye catches the way Yuuri’s fingers fiddle with the fork in his hand, rubbing the silver of the handle. 

“You were planning on going back,” he says.

Yuuri nods. “I didn’t-- I figured it was time,” he says. 

Sorrow stretches out of Yuuri, the kind that is nearly familiar to Viktor’s own sorrow. Loneliness-- different loneliness, but loneliness all the same.

Yuuri looks up at him, his brown eyes tortured and anxious. “I-- um-- I’m so sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry-- I’m sorry-- where is the-- the-- I’m going to--”   
Viktor catches that Yuuri has begun to turn a little pale. Viktor stands and helps Yuuri up, but Yuuri pushes him away and disappears behind a door. Viktor follows, and Yuuri--

His poor Yuuri is hunched over himself and has vomited onto the floor. 

Viktor moves forward, to comfort him, to do something, but Yuuri throws his hand out, to push him away. 

His breath is shuddering and whispering in the room, which feels suffocatingly large. It’s like it was earlier, when Yuuri lost his breathing and had to sit down on the couch in Viktor’s quarters. It’s the same thing but it’s different. Viktor realizes, suddenly, that Yuuri must live so much of his life in  _ fear.  _

Viktor remembers how big the palace is; how empty it is; how lonely it is. He remembers being small in the palace.

“We can leave tomorrow,” Viktor says. Yuuri looks up at him, his wrist hovering over his mouth, his warm brown eyes wide and scared. “For your home. We can leave tomorrow.”

“You don’t have to-- you don’t have to leave, for me,” Yuuri says. “They must need you, here.”

Viktor waves his hand, dismissing. “I’ll bring a messenger,” he says. “And if it’s urgent, I’ll come back for just a few days and be back to you in no time. They can get the palace ready for us, light the fires and prepare our wardrobes.”

Yuuri looks at him. Looks into him, with his warm brown eyes, full of fear. 

Viktor feels a stab of something in his chest, something protective and tender. 

“Are you-- I couldn’t--”

“We’ll go tomorrow,” Viktor interrupts. “Come, you must be exhausted. Do you want to take a bath?”

Yuuri nods, but he looks at the floor. “I can help clean up,” he says.

Viktor shakes his head. “Nonsense,” he says. “Come, let me take you to my private bathing chambers. They are very lovely.”

He ushers Yuuri through a different set of doors and back down another set of hallways, back to the private apartments. He guides him carefully to the bath. 

Yuuri freezes, looking at the space.

“It’s smaller, because it’s just a...it’s just a smaller palace,” Viktor says. “But I like it.”

Yuuri looks at him, directly, for just a moment, before looking away again. 

He nods.

“It’s beautiful,” he says. It seems to be the only thing he says about the palace. It makes something in Viktor uncomfortable, but he’s not sure why. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i swan to john writing this chapter nearly killed me but the next one will turnaround much faster


	8. Chapter 8

Yuuri throws up on a rug he’s sure is worth more than three years of Celestino’s coaching fees, and then Viktor takes him to a room that looks more like a hotel lobby than a bathroom. It’s huge, the walls dark wood with delicate cut outs. It’s warm and humid, with a few dark wooden doors leading who knows where, to who knows what. 

“I could help you,” he says. “While the bath is poured.”   
Yuuri looks back at him, frowns momentarily. He realizes, suddenly, what Viktor means. 

Help him out of his  _ clothes _ . 

And then he backs away shaking his head, emphatically. “No, no!” He says. “No, I can-- by myself! I promise! Thank you! Thank you though!” 

“Are you certain?” Viktor asks. He steps forward, extending his hand.  “We are betrothed; we should know each other!” He smiles, his blue eyes sparkling. 

His expression is so gentle, and Yuuri feels that winding, overwhelmed, panicking feeling rear up in him again. 

Yuuri shakes his head again. “No, no,” he says. “No, I think-- I think maybe I should just go to bed. I can, in the morning. I promise.” 

Viktor pulls his hand away. He almost looks hurt. 

“Of course,” he says. “Let me escort you to your quarters.”

And he does, through winding passages and hallways, past glowing paintings and gilt walls and--

Yuuri’s room is lit only by moonlight. The air is chill.

Viktor frowns. He says something in a language Yuuri thinks is Russian, but he’s not sure. 

“Your room should be  _ ready _ ,” he sighs. “I’m so sorry. You should take my quarters for the night and I will sleep in here.” 

“Oh, no!” Yuuri says, turning to look from the moonlit room to Viktor. “No, I couldn’t. I couldn’t, Viktor, you’ve been so welcoming so far and I couldn’t--”

Viktor smiles. “Yuuri, I have slept for God knows how long. You are tired. You should rest. I am not ready for sleep.” 

His smile is so much more gentle than Yuuri was anticipating. 

“Yuuri, I insist,” he says. “Already there is the chill of night in here. I cannot have you catching cold or sleeping restlessly.”

Viktor turns and opens the door to the passage between the rooms-- between  _ their _ rooms-- and Yuuri, helpless in his orbit, follows. 

The room is lowly lit and warm. The bed looks so inviting, so comfortable. There’s what looks like a nightshirt laid across it. A low fire burns in the fireplace, behind a screen.

VIktor’s gentle smile is still there. “This is better, is it not?” 

“I couldn’t,” Yuuri repeats, because Viktor is a  _ prince _ and this is his  _ palace _ and his personal room and his bed and his nightshirt, and this is some fantasy, some dream, that Yuuri is caught up in. Any moment now, Viktor will realize that Yuuri is no one, or reality will realize that Viktor can’t  _ be _ , and it will all dissolve away. Yuuri couldn’t because he  _ can’t _ , because all this  _ can’t _ .

But Viktor smiles a little wider. He takes Yuuri’s hand, very gently, and he kisses his fingers in the space between knuckles. 

His touch is so gentle.

“Sleep well, Just-Yuuri,” he says. “We travel tomorrow.” 

And he turns and he leaves, and Yuuri stands in the room, overwhelmed. 

White noise rushes in between his ears. He figures he should take off the suit, first. 

The shoes slip off easily. The suit pants leave bite marks in his belly and hips, too tight. The pins holding the hem up poke where they slide pase his ankles. His shoulders relax, pulling off the coat and the shirt. All of him relaxing. Unfolding. He pulls on the nightshirt, which flutters to his knees, loose and comfortable, and he carefully eases himself between the sheets.

They’re soft, and already warm, somehow. 

Yuuri lays in the bed and he--

He stifles panic until he finally falls asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> short chap in a fic of short chaps tbh:: next chapter?? plot happens probably


	9. Chapter 9

Viktor leaves his quarters. Shuts the door behind himself and he--

He leans forward, to touch the wood of it gently, for a long moment. He closes his eyes, as if to hold in his mind closer the image of Yuuri’s warm eyes, his flushed cheeks, the nervous but graceful way he holds himself. Viktor holds an image of Yuuri in his mind that recalls a deer he saw once in the woods-- how long ago he can’t quite remember. Beautiful but strung tightly and readily. Ready to flee at any moment. Viktor holds both the memory of the deer and Yuuri in his mind, simultaneously. 

He turns away from the door connecting his  quarters to Yuuri’s quarters, and he looks around the dark, dusty room and feels anger flow back into him like a tide. He closes his eyes tight and stretches the fingers of his hands before clenching them into fists. He takes a deep breath and smooths his hair away from his face and slips out of the room and into the hall. 

The suit did not fit Yuuri, and the sloppy attempts to  _ make _ it fit only emphasized this. His quarters were unprepared. He has not been made welcome, in what will soon be his own  _ home _ . It leaves a bitter feeling in Viktor’s blood, something ugly. 

“That was a cruel thing you did,” he says to the housekeeper, Yakov, when he encounters him again in the parlor. 

The housekeeper looks at him for an unsteady moment, before Viktor says, “He is our  _ betrothed _ .” His voice is serious. He’s so angry, angrier than he’s been in a long time. He feels his anger seize the words of his power, his authority. The majestic plural flows out from a hidden place in himself. “His rooms should have been prepared. He should have been dressed in  _ finery _ for dinner and not cast offs. He will not be treated such a way.”

The housekeeper, Yakov, assesses him again for a long moment, before he says, “My sincerest apologies, your imperial majesty.”

Viktor nods back, again. “Apologize to him, not to us,” Viktor says. “He is sleeping in our quarters for the evening. You will tell us-- what has become of our empire, whilst we slumbered?”

Yakov nods. “Much has...come to pass, your majesty. Territory, while you slept, was lost. We were able to retain your ancestral grounds but much of your country--”   
“Was there a war?” Viktor asks, heart speeding into his throat.

Yakov shakes his head. “No,” he says. “But the winter came hard, and the people, they abandoned their fields and the country. Places such as these, they are few now, and precious.”

Viktor feels his brow crease. 

“The sunset lands?” he asks.

Yakov nods. “Smaller, too,” he answers. “Or at least, that is what our ambassador said, the last time we saw him.”

Viktor gnaws on his lip, reflexively. 

“We see,” he says. 

“Much of the empire slipped away, in your slumber,” Yakov says. “Your duty, your imperial majesty...the empire is forgetting. The lands beyond the empire, they have all but forgotten.”

Viktor smiles. “What better than a royal wedding, then? A year of attendant touring and greeting, of course, with all the nations of the world and then some. A show of state grandeur.”

Yakov stops, again. These are not pauses in sentences, Viktor is learning-- these are strategic assessments, recalibrations of the lay of the land. 

Viktor is used to be seen such a way, to such assessments. 

“He wishes for us to meet his parents,” Viktor says. “This is customary.”

The housekeeper bristles, just barely. The slightest shifting of his shoulders. “Of course,” he says. “We shall make traveling arrangements for you.”

“We leave tomorrow,” Viktor says. “We will return, periodically, to oversee the reopening of the Winter Palace.”

“Your  _ obligations _ ,” Yakov says, firmly. 

“Our wedding is an obligation,” Viktor interrupts. “And it will mark our reemergence from slumber.”

In his memory, his father is impossibly tall. He stands, unwavering above him, his spine straight and his shoulders square. Viktor remembers, briefly, his father, as he stands before Yakov and reminds him, unequivocally, that Viktor is his Prince. 

“We will work through the night, your imperial majesty,” Yakov says. 

“Yes,” Viktor replies. 

He turns and leaves the parlor. Walks steadily to the bath and washes his skin and hair for the first time since his enchantment. 

When he returns the quarters that belong to Yuuri are prepared, warmed, and cleaned. 

Viktor, not for the first time, slips between the sheets of the bed and lays awake, watching the door that divides his quarters and his fiance’s. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mad short chapter before a lot more happens


	10. Chapter 10

Yuuri wakes up and he doesn’t know where he is for a long moment.

The room is warm and close, but the air smells different from a hotel room. The bed is bigger and softer than his bed in the dorm. The sheets are different. Everything is sort of different, in a non-specific, strange way. 

He can’t place it until he opens his eyes and it hits him, all at once. 

The pink and gold room, covered in intricate scrollwork. The huge bed, and the large fireplace, roaring. A small table set for breakfast and a beautiful chair beside it, a chair that Yuuri is sure costs more than his rent for six months. The beautiful mirror and the silk blanket atop him. 

He lets his fingers drift over the blanket for a long moment. He slept in a prince's bed last night. An actual, honest to god  _prince_. 

Yuuri met a prince yesterday, and he got engaged to him also. 

Yuuri is engaged to a prince. 

Viktor has been kind and gentle and a little overbearing so far. His voice is sweet and clear and his gestures are wide and including. And there's something to Viktor that wants Yuuri, that seems to cling to him. There's something lonely about Viktor. 

Viktor has been nothing but breathlessly strange, but the strangest thing about him is the loneliness, Yuuri decides. 

Yuuri slides his glasses on and lets his gaze focus on a painting on the canopy of the bed of two bright bluebirds facing each other, holding a pink ribbon. Their wings are outstretched and their throats are orange-pink. Dense, gold scrollwork surrounds them. 

Every square inch of the room seems to be covered in an image or scrollwork. 

Yuuri studies the canopy for a long time, interrupted only when comes a soft knock on the door. 

Yuuri blinks a few times, before he clears his throat enough to say, “Come in?”

The door opens, and Viktor steps carefully into the room-- into a room that Yuuri remembers is actually his.

“Good morning, Yuuri,” he says. His voice is soft and sweet. “I hope you are ready to travel, today-- we have everything prepared.”

Yuuri nods, remembering. “I-- how-- how are we going?” He asks.

Viktor smiles, softly. “By carriage, of course,” he answers. “Are you hungry? Do you need help getting dressed? Let me--”   
“I’m fine!” Yuuri answers. “I’m fine, I just need-- I’m still just waking up-- I’m sorry.”

Viktor shakes his head-- “No, you-- you misunderstand. Do not rush-- I simply...I want you to be comfortable, Yuuri.”

Viktor’s hands are clasping each other tightly. The rest of him almost looks nonchalant, comfortable in his space, but there’s something in his hands that betray the lie. Something tensed. Worried.

Yuuri’s eye remains caught on the gesture for just a moment before he tears away and nods, weakly. 

“Of-- of course,” he replies, voice soft. “Do you need to eat?” Yuuri asks him. 

Viktor smiles. “I already ate,  _ solnyshko _ ,” he answers, and his smile is slightly crooked on his face in a way that makes something pleasant twist in Yuuri’s stomach a little. 

Yuuri peels back the blanket and his legs wobble slightly when he climbs out of bed-- he realizes that this time yesterday, he was stretching, getting ready to take the ice at the competition. His feet  _ scream _ as he steps down to the floor, bones in his feet spreading to take his weight. He wishes he had epsom salts or aspirin or that he was in the hot spring back home. He hisses as he stands up, gritting his teeth. 

He hasn’t looked at his feet since he-- since it all started happening. 

He’s going to lose his toenail, he knows this.

Yuuri catches Viktor’s eye flick from his face to his feet, the quickest glance and the slightest downward quirk of his brows.

“Yuuri-- are you hurt?” He asks.

Yuuri shakes his head and he turns away to limp to the breakfast table. “I just had my competition yesterday,” Yuuri answers. “I forgot to stretch before I went to bed and now I’m stiff. I’m sorry.”

“A competition?” Viktor asks, curious. He steps fully into the bedroom, the door slipping behind him. Yuuri can see his clothes-- he’s out of his jacket and waistcoat, and he’s wearing the same high-waisted trousers and white shirt from yesterday, the shirt just unbutton a bit at the collar, his clean collarbones peaking out at the edges. His cheeks are just barely pink to the edges, soft in a particular way. 

Yuuri sits down on the chair and it’s a startlingly stiff, uncomfortable piece of furniture. Viktor sits on the small couch facing it, and Yuuri knows that it must also be an uncomfortable piece of furniture but Viktor looks absolutely natural on it, graceful, on it. 

Yuuri looks at the breakfast for a long moment, uncertain. 

There’s a teapot, decorated elegantly in pinks and golds sitting beside an empty, matching teacup. There’s a rack of toast and an egg perched atop an egg cup. A small dish of what looks like caviar beside it and a dish of what looks like yogurt beside some jam. 

“May I?” Viktor asks. 

Yuuri looks to him, and Viktor has rests his hands on the teapot, carefully. 

Yuuri nods, overwhelmed again. 

Viktor almost looks normal, in dark pants and no coat, sitting just in front of Yuuri over a breakfast table. He almost looks domestic, his hair falling slightly into his eyes, his hands graceful as he lifts the teapot and carefully pours black tea into Yuuri’s awaiting cup. Viktor almost looks approachable, and real, before Yuuri starts noticing details again and it crashes around his ears. 

“Do you take it with sugar?” Viktor asks.

Yuuri shakes his head. 

Viktor smiles again. “I take mine with too much sugar,” he says. “A habit from childhood that regrettably, I haven’t yet dropped. Alas.” 

He turns the cup in space, delicately, so that it’s small handle is pointed facing Yuuri’s hand. 

Yuuri takes a sip of it. 


	11. Chapter 11

Yuuri’s feet are a mess.

Once, a visiting duke from a nearby country fell from a horse. He was young and dashing, and he had tried a jump that his horse was not prepared for. He was thrown. He fell, badly. 

Viktor remembers seeing his bone puncture the flesh of his leg. He remembers the screaming and the tension that ran through the whole palace as the doctors worked furiously to set the leg and let the duke heal. He remembers his tortured voice echoing down the halls. He remembers hardly sleeping that night.

The duke lived to walk with a cane, and he remained dashing. Perhaps even a little more dashing than he had been before. 

Nothing has turned Viktor’s stomach like that moment until he saw Yuuri’s feet. Heard the sharp hiss of pain as he inhaled through his teeth to limp, wincing, to the breakfast table.

It hurts something in Viktor. He considers it as he pours tea for Yuuri, and while Yuuri carefully drinks it, Viktor considers Yuuri’s hair, mussed from sleep. Viktor considers how Yuuri’s glasses sit on his face and how his hands delicately grasp the china, fingertips gingerly resting the pattern as if he could smudge the work there if not being mindful enough. 

Yuuri is so strangely beautiful and so delicate, and it turns Viktor’s stomach that this is a pain that he’s used to. That this is a pain that is somehow  _ intentional.  _

It turns Viktors stomach that this pain is something he cannot protect him from. 

Yuuri looks in the cup. “It’s black tea,” he says. 

Viktor nods. “What other kind could there be?”

Yuuri smiles. “I’ll show you,” he says. “At home. There’s a green tea. It’s different. Maybe you’ll like it.”

“I’m sure I will, if I am allowed to take it with plenty of sugar,” Viktor says. 

Yuuri wrinkles his nose at that, at the notion that perhaps Viktor could never be permitted to do such a thing. 

Viktor laughs. 

Yuuri picks up a spoon and carefully taps the egg, peeling back the barest cap of shell. He slides his spoon into the egg and carefully smears the gooey yolk onto the toast. Eats absently.

Yuuri looks up at him, mid-bite. He finishes chewing before covering his mouth with his hand and saying quietly, “If you have to go do things, you can. I don’t want to hold you.”

“Oh, no, you misunderstand!” Viktor exclaims. “Your clothes have been laundered,” Viktor says. “And I can be dressed momentarily. We’re ready to go. You have me already. I’m yours.”

It’s very forward. Yuuri blushes. Viktor smiles. 

Yuuri looks up at him, and he says, “I’m-- I’m supposed to marry you?”   
Viktor nods. “You could not wake me up if you weren’t,” he says. “The curse was very clear.”

Yuuri looks at him, baffled. Still. Like he can’t believe any of this is real or true. 

Yuuri looks at the toast in his hand and he says, “Let me get dressed. We’ll get going.”

Viktor smiles, again. “Of course,” he says. “Do you need assistance dressing or--”

“No!” Yuuri interrupts. “No! I can do it by myself, I promise. I promise. I’ll be right out.”

Viktor nods. He slips through the door out of his room and into the room that will be Yuuri’s soon. 

He pulls on his traveling clothes, finishing with his most handsome black velvet boots and knocks on the door to the bedroom. 

“Yuuri?  _ Solynshko _ , are you decent?” He asks.

The door opens. Yuuri looks marginally more composed in his strange clothes, with his glasses on and his hair brushed out of his face. 

“Are we just...leaving?” Yuuri asks.

Viktor nods. “It’s all been arranged. My bags have been packed and yours have, too.”

“Bags?” Yuuri asks. 

“Well, of course,” Viktor says. “I am giving you the dowry.”

Yuuri pales. “A dowry?” He says.

Viktor nods. “I am returning as your betrothed, after all. And thought we will come to live here, permanently, well, it is a custom.”

Yuuri nods. “Of course. A custom,” he murmurs. 

Viktor extends his hand out to Yuuri. Yuuri looks at his hand before taking it as gingerly as he took the china, and follows Viktor down the hall.

* * *

 

Yuuri follows Viktor through the palace and to the bank of stairs leading, split from the sides, down to the courtyard.

There’s a large carriage, the same one from the last time. On top though, are a few large, beautiful chests. The horses are tall and broad, with beautiful white coats. A long line of servants, their head bowed, watching as they enter the carriage.

Yuuri says nothing. What could he say?

And the door closes. And Viktor looks at him, beside him, in the carriage. 

And it begins to move. 

Viktor looks over at Yuuri and says, softly, “I have a gift for you.”

Yuuri startles. 

Viktor shifts in his seat to face Yuuri and look at him with his clear, blue eyes. He unbuttons the top button of his shirt and pulls a long silver chain from under his clothes. 

There’s two shining bands on it. Silvery in the light, looking light and delicate. Almost faint. 

Viktor pulls the rings off of the chain. 

Yuuri’s heart stutters in his chest. 

He’s supposed to marry him. 

“I know they do not look terribly extraordinary,” he says. “And I know you deserve jewels and fine, shining gold.”

Yuuri voice is stuck in his throat as Viktor looks at the two rings in his palm. He seems to study them for a long moment, before he looks back at Yuuri. 

“Could we?” he asks. His voice is so quiet and small and hopeful. 

Yuuri doesn’t know him well yet. Barely knows him at all. But Yuuri knows he doesn’t have it in him to break his heart. Not now, and probably not ever. 

Yuuri nods. Extends his hand outward.

Viktor carefully takes a ring and slides it onto Yuuri’s hand. 

Yuuri looks at Viktor’s palm. At the other ring. 

It’s warm from Viktor’s body heat. Yuuri takes it gently and slides it onto Viktor’s long finger. 

Viktor looks at his hand for a long time, and then he looks up at Yuuri. 

He throws his arms around Yuuri tightly. Yuuri sits for just a moment, startled, before he wraps his arms around Viktor. 

They hold each other for an uncommonly long period of time. 

Yuuri doesn’t say anything for the remainder of the carriage ride. 

What could he say?


	12. Chapter 12

The carriage stops. 

Viktor looks over at Yuuri, whose eyes are shut tight against the world. He looks pale. Terribly nervous. 

His hand is still wrapped in Yuuri’s. He squeezes his hand slightly. Yuuri’s curls tighter, grasping against his fingers tight enough to hurt a little. 

“Yuuri,  _ solnyshko, _ ” Viktor says. “We’ve arrived.”

Yuuri nods a few times before he releases a shaking breath. “I’m okay,” he says. “I’m okay. I’m okay.”

He says it a few times, like he’s trying to convince himself as much as he’s trying to convince Viktor. 

“Are you ready?” Viktor asks.

Yuuri nods. Opens his warm, brown eyes looks at Viktor and says, “No.” He bites his bottom lip before he opens the door to his side of the carriage and steps out.

Viktor watches him go before he opens his own door and steps out. 

Viktor looks around. “Yuuri?” He calls. He rounds the back of the carriage, and Yuuri is standing there, looking about. 

“It’s the lake,” he says softly. 

Viktor nods. “This is as far as the carriage goes. But it’s not far. Where you’re supposed to be, it isn’t far. We just have to walk.”

“What about the trunks?” Yuuri asks. 

Viktor smiles. “They’ll get there, too, don’t worry,” he says. “We just have to walk.”

Yuuri looks out over the frozen lake. Into the inky darkness, lit only by the stars and the moon. 

Yuuri’s hands twist and grasp anxiously. 

Cautiously, Viktor reaches out and takes his hand gently. And they walk, at a measured pace, across the lake and out of Viktor’s lands and into Yuuri’s.

There’s no specific moment-- it’s both sudden and gradual, the shifting mantle of his country into the becoming of Yuuri’s. One moment the lake and forest are full of precious silence and then sound falls through like light through a windowpane. Viktor has never heard something like this before; a rushing and roaring he could not explain. Like wind but different, louder and crueler. The light shifts and starlight disappears and yellow-brown light replaces it, somehow brighter but  _ different.  _

Yuuri gasps, his breath hanging as a cloud on the air. 

Yuuri says something in a language Viktor can’t quite catch, and then he whispers, “It’s Hasetsu.”

Viktor looks at Yuuri. His expression is almost unreadable. Overcome with something. His hands fly up to cover his mouth. A strangled sort of sound escapes anyway. 

Yuuri turns to Viktor and says, “How? How did we...how?”   
Viktor smiles. “We just did,” he says. “It is as it always is.”

VIktor watches Yuuri. He watches something in his body and shoulders shift, something aching in his expression and posture. Yuuri steps further into his country and soon he is running. Viktor follows him, as Yuuri tears past the trees and they are let out to a paved walkway before a wall, the wall looking out onto the sea. 

Viktor has never seen the ocean before. 

Yuuri looks at it, gasping and shuddering. He holds onto the wall before the beach and loses and regains his breath in alternating cycles. He looks at it with tears streaming down his face.

And then there’s chiming, from somewhere in Yuuri’s pocket. Yuuri stops looking at the ocean and fumbles his hand into his pocket and pulls something out. 

He looks at it before holding it up to his ear and saying more in the language Viktor does recognize. His tone is different. Dazed. 

He eventually pulls the thing away from his ear and looks and Viktor and says, “My house is a ten minute walk that way. My parents and my sister and my dog.”

Viktor grins. “Let’s go, then,” he says.

* * *

 

Yurri didn’t even realize he had his phone still until it goes off, bringing him away from the joy-panic spiral he feels standing in front of the beach he grew up on. But he feels the buzzing against his leg and he hears the ringtone and he fishes it out of his pocket and he answers. 

“Yuuri?” Mari says on the other line. 

“Hey,” he replies. “Hey, Mari.”

“Where  _ are _ you?” She asks. Her voice is tight and firm and serious. 

“Uh,” Yuuri answers. “I’m...I’m home.”

“Are you okay?” She demands. “Are you safe? Are you fed-- is everything okay?” 

“I’m okay,” Yuuri says. “I’m okay. I’m home. I’ll be right there. I’m okay.”

And he hang up and he looks at Viktor, and he says, “My house is a ten minute walk that way. My parents and my sister and my dog.”

Viktor grins. He has a way of doing it, like he’s been caught doing something he knows he shouldn’t. There’s something eminently playful about it, something friendly that leaves Yuuri a little startled. As if Viktor weren’t startling enough all the time already. 

“Let’s go, then,” Viktor answers. 

Yuuri begins to walk down the sidewalk that eventually meanders to the hill. He looks at it, the snow reflecting the lamplight back. He tries to wrap his head around it. 

He was in Dublin. 

Now he’s home. 

He’s  _ home _ . 

He begins to climb the hill and Viktor follows, no problem. 

And Yuuri opens the door to the inn-- to the house, to  _ home _ \-- and Mari stands there, with his father and his mother and the Nishigoris and Minako and that’s when all hell breaks loose. 

“ _ Yuuri!”  _ Minako wails. Everyone seems to say something all at once, but her voice cuts through like a whistle, high and clear. They all surge forward, but his mother makes her way forward first and she pulls him tight into her arms. 

“ _ Yuuri, _ ” she whispers, just loud enough he can hear her. “Yuuri, we thought we would never see you again. Where did you go?”

He can’t even see her. He’s taller than her now, by nearly a full foot, and she has her face buried in his chest and her arms tight around him. 

“Hi, Ma,” Yuuri says. “Sorry-- uh-- I--”

“Where were you?” Minako cries, her voice high and loud as she darts over to him, to pull his face into her hands and inspect him at every angle. “Where  _ were _ you?” 

Yuuri feels weights at his feet and looks down-- now the triplets are hanging off of him. 

It’s overwhelming to say the least. 

Mari steps forward, her eyes serious. “Yuuri, you’ve been  _ gone _ for two months. What the hell happened?” 

“Two-- two  _ months _ ?” Yuuri asks. He looks at them all. “Two  _ months _ ?”

He looks down at his mother, who lets him go and looks him in the eye. She runs a finger along the bottom rim of her right eye, to pull away tears. 

“Oh, Yuuri,” she says. “Yuuri, it’s so good to have you home.”

“Good to have him  _ home _ ? Good to know he’s  _ alive _ ,” Minako shouts. “Where the  _ hell _ did you go?”

“Uh,” Yuuri says, again. Feeling  _ very _ smart in front of everyone. 

And behind him, Viktor clears his throat. 

Everyone’s eyes shift from Yuuri to Viktor. 

A tall foreigner with silvery hair and perfect posture and a strange coat in deep magenta. 

Viktor bows, low, and says, “Hello. I am Prince Viktor Ivan Nikolaevich Nikiforov, crown prince of the Winter Kingdoms beyond the East and past the West to the Starlit Sea and the Dark Forests, head of colonies in the Bright Lands and Sovereign of Beyond the Fields We Know and Protector of the Twilight Hours.” He rises and they all looks at him like maybe he has had a major aneurysm. Yuuri knows this is how he feels himself. 

“I am also the Fiance of Katsuki Yuuri,” he says. 

Yuuri knows that his English is the best in the room, but he also knows that everyone knows the word  _ fiance _ and he also knows that they’ve all seen the rings on their fingers. 

This is when hell  _ actually _ breaks loose. 


	13. Chapter 13

Viktor remembers, sitting in the blue parlor with a tea set between them, time passed.

It has been nearly a year since Okukawa first came to court, and in that time she has become marvelously close to Viktor and increasingly accustomed to the forms and styles of court. Her shoulders now uncovered by the wide, forgiving neckline of her gown. The fabrics shining and stiff, the embroidery elaborate and beautiful. Her posture is still clear and tall and her hair has been tucked into a neat bun at the base of her neck, instead of hidden beneath a tall wig as most of the ladies at court wear their hair. And her dark eyes sparkle and her mouth smiles.

“Your Imperial Majesty,” she says, placing her cup down onto the saucer, her movements careful and graceful as they always are. “Are you quite sure? It is unlikely you should ever travel to my lands.”

Viktor nods. “I am quite sure,” he says. “It is my duty to know the world and lands around me as well as possible. And as you are the sole emissary of your country thus far, it does seem fitting that you should tutor me,” he says.

She smiles. “It will take practice,” she says. “And time.”

“I have time,” he says. “And I’m a very adept student. I could offer you great things in return. Have you ever been interested in being a duchess, Madame?”

She laughs, her elegant hand covering her mouth, long fingers tipped by well manicured nails. “I have never had much interest in being a member of the gentry, your Imperial Majesty,” she answers, lightly.

“Gems? Jewels?” Viktor says. “Gold, silver?”

She shakes her head, lightness and laughter still pouring from her bosom. “No, no,” she says. “Nothing like that. I want something perhaps less tangible.”

Viktor remembers the blue parlor with absolute vividness, standing here under the cedar beams of Yuuri’s home. Viktor remembers his own, inelegant tongue tripping clumsily over the syllbles and shapes of Okukawa’s language. He remembers her body rising tall and proud into the shapes of ballet. A skill for a skill, an even trade.

Viktor remembers these things as he sees her-- different but the same-- run to Yuuri, to crowd in close to him as a crowd of people pull him close. A small, round woman with the same face and eyes as Yuuri pulls him into her arms.

The room is full of people, and they all embrace and fawn over Yuuri and ask him quick questions and Yuuri answers, his brown eyes wide and beautiful.

Viktor hears Okukawa’s voice, the language becoming clear as suddenly as it was unknown, call out, “Where have you been?”

Yuuri makes a sound in the back of his throat, something unsure.

And then a roomfull of eyes settle on Viktor. Round, brown eyes like Yuuri’s and darker eyes that are less trusting. Okukawa’s own steely grey eyes.

Foreign in a far court, Viktor bows low and introduces himself.

A clear, steady voice says, “Yuuri, who is this?” Viktor looks at the woman who spoke, a little older than Yuuri, her brow furrowed and her hair wild about her face.

Viktor stands tall and polite and assesses them.

“Yuuri, who is this?” She repeats, her eyes still fixed on Viktor. Her gaze flickers with anger, with suspicion.

“This is...this is Viktor,” Yuuri says, his voice small and unsure.

Viktor holds his expression, hides his disappointment. He’s not surprised, exactly, that Yuuri would so casually break his heart, but it does twist something painfully in his chest.

“Viktor-- we-- after the competition, I stayed with him,” Yuuri continues.

This is broadly true. Viktor smiles.

“You stayed with him?” Okukawa asks, her voice loud, her eyes flitting from Yuuri to Viktor.

“For two months?” A man asks, tall and broad and barrell shaped, hanging back a bit.

Viktor knows this woman must be Yuuri’s mother. The resemblance is uncanny-- the same eyes, the same shape to her body-- but she’s smaller and so much softer. She holds Yuuri, as if somehow she could shelter him.

She looks at Yuuri seriously, says something with her voice just low enough for Viktor to not quite catch.

“Mom,” Yuuri says, sounding unsettled. “Of-- of course he did.”

“We have to tell the police,” another man says, an older man with something of his posture that belongs to Yuuri, something in the set of his spine. “They’ll have to interview you.”

“What?” Yuuri blusters. “Why? I’m  _ fine-- _ I’m-- I was--“

“You were gone for two months,” Okukawa says. She glances over at Viktor, her eyebrow raised. “Where were you?”

_ Where was he, Viktor? _

She never called him by anything other than his styles on honorifics. Viktor knows, though, that she was never outside of his court before.

“I--“ Yuuri says.

“Who the hell are you?” the angry woman demands, looking at Viktor. Her voice is sharp and loud. “Where the hell was Yuuri?”

“We were in--“ Viktor starts.

* * *

 

“I was in a car accident,” Yuuri says. “On a rural route. My first flight out was cancelled so they routed me through Russia.” He interrupts Viktor quickly. He feels the room’s eyes peel away from Viktor, from magnetic, fascinating, beautiful Viktor. “It was in the middle of nowhere, late at night, on a shuttle from one airport to a train station and there was an accident and I...I woke up in the snow. And then I woke up at Viktor’s and it had been a little while but I hadn’t realized...how long.”

“Why didn’t you call us?” Mari barks, real panic seizing her. “Why didn’t you write or why didn’t he calls us or--“

“My phone didn’t work. It didn’t until I got back onto the beach, Mari, and--“

“Yuuri,” Minako says.

Yuuri looks at her. She looks tired, more tired than she should, than she ever has before. Her railstraight posture seems fragile, somehow, and her grey eyes have heavy bags under them.

“Is that true?” She asks.

Yuuri nods, dumbly. Overwhelmed.

Of course it isn’t, and it’s indefensibly thin, but Yuuri doesn’t know what else he’d say.

“Yuuri?” Viktor asks, Yuuri’s own name transmuted strangely by Viktor’s voice.

And Yuuri turns from Minako to Viktor, who looks a little different in the doorway. Somehow smaller-- more real in the way he was in the carriage or sitting beside Yuuri on a fainting couch.

“Viktor,” Yuuri says. He carefully pulls his mother’s hands from himself and gestures from her to Viktor. “Viktor, this is my mother.”

It feels stupid and desparate and foolish for a moment.

His mother looks at Viktor.

Viktor bows low. “I am Viktor Nikolaevich Nikiforov,” he says.

She looks at him as he extends his hand forward. She takes his hand in her delicately and Viktor rises, slightly, to look upward at her with his clear blue eyes, and kisses her knuckles chastely. Sweetly. Respectfully.

Yuuri swallows his fear, and after a moment, his mother smiles, warmly, and says, “My name is Katsuki Hiroko. Did you say you were Yuuri’s fiance?”

“Did he?” Minako asks, sounding winded and exasperated.

Yuuri can hear Mari crack her knuckles.

“Mari-- I--“ Yuuri says. “ _Don’t_ \-- he--“

Minako gasps. “He is,” she murmurs.

“Yuuri, what the  _ fuck _ ?” Mari demands, angry.

Nishigori looks at him open mouthed, and Yuuko and the triplets immediately shriek, the sound equally joyful and aghast. Dad’s eyebrows are making a beeline for his hairline, mouth drawn downward in puzzled surprise.

Yuuri blushes to the roots of his hair. This wasn’t how this was supposed to go. Yuuri would come home and he’d have been away for two days because of touch and go travel. Viktor a friend from school, come to visit. And Yuuri would have Viktor get bored and when he left, it would just be a blip, some weird occasion in Yuuri’s twenties. And Yuuri would forget Viktor, or he would try, and his family wouldn’t remember him in the first place.

And instead, Yuuri’s been gone for two months and Viktor speaks Japanese and Yuuri’s his fiance. And it’ll take a little longer for Viktor to go back and it’ll be a little harder to forget Viktor and now, now the family will know when it falls apart because Yuuri is so average, so boring, so dime-a-dozen.

His mother takes both of Viktor’s hands in hers and she says, “We should probably get some food on the table, then, and find you a room.”

 


	14. Chapter 14

Yuuri’s mother-- Hiroko, she insists in her soft, kind voice-- pulls Viktor through the house and to a low, small table. She pulls him down, pressing on his shoulders eventually to get him to sit. Viktor sits and Yuuri drifts to him, followed by the thunderstruck crowd that greeted them. 

There’s so much about the house that’s different from anywhere Viktor has been before. The shape of the room is so different-- it doesn’t reach for the heavens with quite the same intensity. There are fewer windows, and the walls are all exposed, dark timbers and pale material. Behind a glass display case is an assortment of glistening foods and a set of trophies. Paper banners hang. A few people sit around low tables, attention held by something Viktor can make neither heads nor tails of. They all seem to be wearing simple clothes of the strict, structured geometry that Okukawa’s clothes had for such a long time, but with much less ornamentation. No jewelry. No paintings or gilt on the walls. No candelabras or great, shining silver mirrors. 

Viktor sits on the floor in front of the curious, squarish table. The floor feels dense, a strange sort of carpet Viktor has never experienced before.

Yuuri looks at Viktor and Viktor follows the slow bob of his adam’s apple in his throat. “You should take off your shoes,” he says. 

Viktor looks at Yuuri’s feet, and Yuuri is wearing flat, rather shabby slippers. 

“Of course,” Viktor says, and he pulls his boots off carefully, flexing his toes in his fine silk socks. 

Yuuri takes his shoes from him and hands him a pair of slippers. Viktor slides them on, befuddled. He hopes there are slippers in the dowry, for Yuuri and no one else. His injured feet are so precious; something should be soft for them. 

Yuuri slips back away, to the front of the large, open house. Most of the crowd follows him, a torrent of questions and statements rushing to him, faster than Viktor can hear. 

But Okukawa stays, and she stands, and she looks at Viktor. 

Viktor is seated on the floor, with his legs tucked underneath him, his trousers pulled tight over his knees and thighs. He has taken off his traveling coat and is only wearing his shirt and waistcoat underneath. It’s a strange, undressed sort of feeling, but this place Yuuri is from is different, and it must be different from where Okukawa is from, too. 

She sits down across from Viktor, her posture tall and straight. 

“Yuuri found you,” she says, her voice steady and sharp in Viktor’s own language. 

Viktor smiles. “He did,” he says. 

Okukawa’s hands are spread, wide-fingered, on the table. Her eyes are flinty, intense. “We knew each other, once,” she says. 

Viktor knows that the pause here is not an invitation for him to speak. It’s a moment for her to gather herself. To consider. 

“You must know,” she says, “that this is a place different from where we knew each other.”

Viktor nods, gravely. 

“Vitya,” she says. “Here, I am no enchantress. Here, you have no dominion.” She leans forward, her long hair brushing into her face. “Yuuri is precious to me. The Katsuki family is precious to me. If you hurt them, I am unafraid of regicide.”

“I would never hurt him,” Viktor says. “I love him.”

And he means it. He does love him. He loves him desperately, hungrily. He was always meant to. That was the condition of the spell. 

_ Whoever wakes you, Viktor, will be the love of your life, _ she’d said, wearing not her courtly costume but severe, stark clothes; the sharp, crisp white only interrupted by curious weaving of flowers. There’s a soft sound of bells, in her hair.  _ I have made this very strong and I have seen it clearly. Only the right one will slip through _ .

There’d been a gentleness to her then. It is gone here.

"Time is different here, Viktor. He was  _gone_. We nearly  _buried_ him," she says. 

Viktor looks at the tabletop. Guilt a low, terrible fire in his belly. "We didn't know," he says. "We  _couldn't_ have known."

"You can't split time here," she says. "He has a life. Competitions and studies and his family. His friends. He can't miss that."

"I wouldn't ask him to," he says. "I love him."

Okukawa shakes her head, steady. She looks dangerous. Like a wildfire.  “You don’t know him,” she hisses. “You don't know him.”

They look at him, through the window from the kitchen into the room, at his face in the light and the expression animated across his features. 

“He needs someone to care for him,” Viktor says. “And to hold him and heal his wounds and to love him. He needs someone to love him.”   
“You’re projecting,” she says. “And if you make him cry, I will kill you.”

Viktor nods. 

He notices the way her eyes rest on his hands, on the wedding band settled on his finger. 

-

Yuuri puts Viktor’s shoes in a cubbyhole, and then is bustled quickly away, into the kitchen, where his sister holds him by the arms and looks him straight in the eye. Severe. 

“Are you hurt?” She asks.

Yuuri shakes his head. 

“Where  _ were  _ you?” She demands.

“Viktor’s,” Yuuri answers. It’s not untrue. 

She looks at him wildly, desperately. 

“Mari,” Yuuri says, taking her hands, looking her clear in the eye. “I’m not in danger. I never was. Not with Viktor.”

“You were  _ gone _ ,” she says. Her eyes look watery. “We contacted police. We asked  _ everyone _ . We were so scared-- Yuuri, why didn’t you  _ say _ anything? Why didn’t you  _ call _ ?”

Yuuri swallows drily. 

He wishes he could answer. 

“Mari,” his mother says, her voice very soft. “There will be plenty of time for that later. Your father is calling the police now to let them know Yuuri is back.”

“The police,” Yuuri murmurs, softly. 

His phone vibrates in his hand and he looks at it.

Hundreds of messages. Dozens of calls. 

He looks at it. 

“How...how long was I gone?” He asks, looking at Mari. 

“Yuuri, what  _ happened _ ?” She demands.

"I--" Yuuri says, his voice stopping in his throat. 

"Yuuri," his mother calls. "Come help me with the rice."

Yuuri looks at his sister, unsure what more he could say, if anything. He walks past her into the kitchen, where his mother stands on a stepstool to serve rice out of the electronic cooker. She hands him a bowl, and he settles it into the crook of his arm. She keeps handing them to him, and he cradles them.

"He seems like a nice boy," she says. 

"He is," Yuuri says. 

"He took good care of you?" She asks. 

Yuuri nods. "Mom," he says. 

"That's what matters," she murmurs, handing him the last of six bowls. She closes the enormous rice cooker and steps off the stool. "You don't have to tell me everything now. But when you're ready, okay, Yuuri?"

Yuuri nods. 

“Yuuri?” Nishigori calls from the other room. “There’s-- well, it looks  _ huge _ .”

Yuuri looks at all the bowls in his hands, and his mother carefully loads them into her own arms. Yuuri jogs out of the kitchen and to the door, where a mountain of chests has appeared. 

“Viktor?” Yuuri calls, looking at it. 

There’s a beat, before Yuuri feels Viktor behind him, just the energetic shape of his presence over his shoulder. 

“Oh,” Viktor says. “It’s the dowry.”   
“The  _ what _ ?” Yuuri asks. 

“Gifts,” Viktor says. “I guess it’s technically a bride price, actually.” 

Yuuri turns and looks at him. “Where did this  _ come _ from?” He asks.

“It’s been curated and collected since I was born,” he says. “I don’t actually know what’s here. I hope it’s enough.”

It’s six chests, huge and ornate and beautiful, on the porch of the inn. 

Yuuri looks at it, as overwhelming as everything else that’s happened so far. 

“I was gone  _ two months _ ,” Yuuri murmurs. 

It must be February. He feels his phone in his pocket. Messages and missed calls. He's going to have to talk to the police. He'll have to talk to Phichit and Celestino and  _school_ and his parents. Is he still in the competition? He tries to remember what he's  _missed_ \-- is he done for the season?  Is he  _done_?

He thinks he hears someone say his name. A few people. 

Yuuri feels his blood stop, and then he feels darkness close around him like warm, suffocating panic. 


	15. Chapter 15

Viktor catches Yuuri easily, cradles him in his arms. He’s pale and his brow is beaded with sweat. His dark brows are furrowed, ever so slightly. 

Viktor slides his arm under his legs and lifts him into his arms, gently. He turns and asks, “Where is his bedchamber?”

Hiroko startles slightly and leads Viktor through the back and up a narrow flight of stairs and to a small room with a sliding door and thin walls. He steps in and lays Yuuri on the small, low bed, the blankets fresh and turned back, the white walls hung with a few pictures but otherwise unadorned.

Viktor brushes Yuuri’s hair from his forehead, feels his temperature with the back of his hand. 

“Yuuri?” He asks, his voice firm. 

Yuuri doesn’t respond. 

Viktor makes sure his clothes are loose, that nothing is suffocating or constricting him. Yuuri’s breathing is steady, though, and his pulse is lethargic. 

Viktor frowns. 

“Do you have smelling salts?” He asks Yuuri, who remains unresponsive.

Viktor turns, and Hiroko has a basin with a washcloth. 

Viktor nods and wets the cloth-- the water is cool but not cold. He lays it over Yuuri’s brow. Yuuri’s eyes dance under his lids a little and his shoulders ease. 

“Sometimes,” she says, her voice kind and soft, “Yuuri is overwhelmed. This happens. He’ll be okay. I promise.”

Viktor looks at him for a long moment before he turns and looks at her, at Yuuri’s mother.

“Are you really engaged?” She asks. Her hands are folded in front of her. 

Viktor nods. He pulls his hand away from Yuuri to show her the band on his finger. 

She takes his hand softly and examines the ring, his finger, his pale hands. 

Her hands are chapped and damp and rough. She works, as he imagines Yuuri must. 

Viktor feels like a child, in front of her. A soft and spoiled child. 

She grasps his hand, though, and smiles at him. 

“Is that your luggage on the front?” She asks.

Viktor nods. “And gifts, for your family,” he says. 

“Oh, Vicchan,” she says, smiling. “You didn’t have to do such a thing.” She pulls Viktor’s hand, pulling him up. “Let Yuuri rest. We’ll put you in a banquet room.”

She pushes him out of Yuuri’s room, flicking off his light and shutting his door. 

Viktor looks at his door as he walks down the hall. Heads back down the stairs and to the porch, where the trunks are being loaded into the inn, hauled by two people at a time. 

Viktor takes one end Hiroko another and they head down a different hall to a large room. They load the chest in, separate from each other.

A small child-- a girl-- runs into the room and lays both of her hands on a chest. “ _ Wow!”  _ She exclaims. Her voice is high and loud. She says something, rushed and unclear that Viktor can’t quite understand.

The young woman from earlier, she picks up the girl and two more peer from behind her legs. Triplets. 

VIktor smiles at them. 

“She asked if it were treasure,” the woman says, in English. “I’m Nishigori Yuuko.”

Viktor smiles. He boys, deeply. 

“I am Viktor Ivan Nikolaevich Nikiforov,” he says, and he rises. “It is treasure.”

All four pairs of eyes go a little rounder. 

Viktor smiles. “I’ve never opened them. Can you help me?”

_ “Yes!” _ Three small, high voices call out in unison. 

The girl being held squirms until Nishigori Yuuko, presumably her mother, puts her down. 

Viktor looks back at her, a young woman with a kind face and hair tucked upward in a utilitarian sort of way. Nishigori Yuuko and her three small daughters who are gathered around Viktor and looking up at him with huge eyes. 

Viktor chuckles and kneels down in front of a chest. He holds the lock in his hand and pulls the key out of the small pocket interior to his waistcoat. It’s shining and beautiful. He slides it into the lock and turns it, and the chest opens easily. He lifts the lid and looks inside. 

The three little girls  _ gasp! _ and shriek with glee. 

“It’s  _ beautiful!” _ One of them cries. 

Viktor smiles. He smooths his hand over the surface; it’s soft and already warm.  _ An enchantment, _ he thinks, smiling. 

“I remember my Mama weaving this lace,” he says, letting his finger trace over the long stalactites of drop lace along the edge of the sheets. “I didn’t know it was for this though.”

The girls reach up with small, reverent fingers. Viktor lets the sheet drop to their hands and then gasp and touch it gently. There’s a full set in the chest, along with down pillows and a fine, woven bedspread; a shining swan on a deep blue field. 

“For our bed,” Viktor explains. 

“These are beautiful!” Yuuko exclaims, stepping into the room and kneeling beside her daughters.

Viktor smiles. Opens the next chest.

There’s a several large, wooden boxes. Viktor pulls one out and opens it-- it’s deep wide. 

“Oh!” He exclaims, chuckling. “A coffee maker!”

The thing is crystal and gold, with a fine mahogany stand. The oil lamp beneath it is well trimmed and clean. The crystal basin has a long, gold siphon feeding into a gold basin, positioned over the oil lamp. 

“What kind of coffee maker is that?” A girl asks. She steps forward. 

“It’s an automatic siphon!” Viktor answers. “A friend of mine had one, long ago. You light the lamp to heat the water and the water turns into--”

“What do you do?” Nishigori Yuuko asks, looking at it.

“Oh,” Viktor says. “I guess--  I guess I’m a kind of diplomat, I suppose.”

Her eyebrows raise. “Wow!” She says. “How did you meet Yuuri?” 

“Was he skating?” A girl asks. 

“Yuuri’s a  _ very  _ good skater,” another girl says.

“His season this year was average but he  _ is  _ JSF certified,” the third says.

“Axle! Lutz! Loop!” their mother says. “Go help Mari with the folding!” 

The little girls moan but shuffle out of the room.

She smiles. “How did you meet Yuuri?” she asks again. 

“It was a cold winter’s night,” Viktor says. “For me, it had been for quite a long time. And, you see, I had been out, observing the stars. It was quite dark, nearby. But I saw-- in the distance? Lights. And Yuuri, he was in trouble so I brought him home with me and helped me recover and--” Viktor pauses. “He woke me up.”

“And you’ve known each other just the two months?” She asks.

_ Less _ , Viktor thinks. 

“How do you know Yuuri?” Viktor asks, instead of saying that.

“We grew up together!” She answers. “My family owned the rink he learned to skate on. Do you skate?”

Viktor shrugs. “Only a few times, and not very well,” he says. “I do love to dance, though. I imagine if done well, they must be similar.”

“Minako taught Yuuri to dance,” she says. She slides the sheets and blankets back into the first chest. “He did  _ years _ of ballet when he lived here.”

“Ballet?” Viktor asks. His throat goes dry. 

Yuuri must be a  _ beautiful _ dancer. 

Okukawa steps into the doorway though and assesses the chests, before turning to Nishigori and saying, “Takeshi is going to take the girls home, if you want to catch a ride. Yuuri’s asleep.”

“Oh!” Nishigori exclaims. She smiles. “It was lovely meeting you Viktor!” She runs from the room. 

Leaving Viktor with Okukawa. 

“A diplomat?” She asks. 

“Yuuri is giving them half-truths,” Viktor says. “I suppose he must have a reason why.”

She looks at the chests, her gaze sharp. She trains the same eyes on Viktor.

“You didn’t tell me you taught him,” he says.

“He’s a better student than you,” she says. “And I’m a better teacher.”

Viktor shrugs. “I wouldn’t know,” he says. “I haven’t seen him dance or skate. Not yet.”

“You can’t stay,” Okukawa says. “Your kingdom will need you.”

“They I will go,” he says. 

“And Yuuri can’t go,” she continues. “He has a life and career. He’s not a trophy or something you can cage.”

“No,” Viktor says. “He’s my equal and my spouse. The other part of me.”

“He can’t stop being himself to  _ complete  _ you!” She says, sternly. 

“Could someone have done such a thing if they  _ weren’t _ someone you know?” Viktor answers, equally sharp. “Or was the spell  _ never _ supposed to work? Or do you think so  _ little _ of me?”

“Vitya,” Okukawa spits, shaking her head. She storms from the room. 

Viktor sits on the floor, alone with the bedsheets and coffee pot.

Viktor runs his hands through his hair. Squints his eyes closed sharply.

Overwhelmed, and once more, alone. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me: yeah hell yeah ground this realistic details like what the police are doing and where yuuri WENT  
> also me: you know what? fuck this


	16. Chapter 16

Yuuri wakes up in his bedroom, in his bed, and he assesses. 

His walls have his notes still pinned up-- program ideas from before he went to Detroit. From almost six years ago now. There’s a few pictures of him on school uniforms and podiums for local competitions. There’s a few books. A few pictures of Mari and Mom and Dad. 

Yuuri could almost believe it had all been a dream. Detroit and skating and the season. The crushing absence being  _ good _ at it in him. Viktor. 

Yuuri can almost believe Viktor was a dream. 

Yuuri looks at his wall and he gnaws on his bottom lip, pulling it between his teeth. There’s a rogue soreness in his calves and ankles and feet. Stiffness in his hip-- he took a bad fall this year and his right hip still has that creaking, aching feeling. He landed his jumps in Dublin, but the shock and battery of it is still written in him. 

There’s a sound, and his door opens slowly. Yuuri sits up, to see Viktor standing there, holding a small, china cup, a blanket draped over his arm. 

“Oh!” he says, surprised. “You’re awake.”

Yuuri nods. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I-- I didn’t mean to--”

“I was worried you were sick,” Viktor says, stepping into the room and handing Yuuri the cup of tea. The cup is beautiful-- dark blue over white in a wide, netted design--with a delicate saucer. The tea is black, with a sugar cube resting on the saucer beside the cup. The blanket Viktor pulls from his arm is winter-white and exceptionally soft. Yuuri knows because Viktor pulls it over Yuuri’s shoulders. 

Yuuri shakes his head. “Just tired,” he says. “And the-- it surprised me.”

Viktor smiles at him. He looks down, his graceful neck bending so beautiful and strong. “Your mother told me something similar. Still,” he laughs. There’s no humor in it, in a way that makes something Yuuri’s chest twist. Viktor, laughing when there’s nothing to laugh at. 

Yuuri takes a sip of the tea. It’s sweet, in a weird sort of way. Not sugar. He places the cup back on the saucer. It feels so light and thin, he worries it’ll dissolve in the hot water. 

“What was everything? What was that?” Yuuri asks. 

Viktor smiles. “My luggage. Our luggage. I opened some of them,” he says. “But not all of them. Most of it is gifts, for your family. And for you.”

Yuuri blinks. “For me?” He asks, seized with disbelief.

“I--” Viktor pauses. Swallows. “I always wanted you to have beautiful things,” he says. “So we put things away.” Viktor’s blue eyes shift from Yuuri’s face to his bedspread, to the china cup. Back to him. “Finery and jewelry and art and wares.”

“You didn’t  _ know _ me,” Yuuri whispers.  _ I’m not worth it, take it back, Viktor. _

There’s something  _ pained _ that shifts over Viktor’s face. 

“Yuuri,” Viktor says, right as Yuuri’s bedroom door opens and his mother bustles in.

“You’re awake!” She exclaims, brightly. “Just in time-- someone is here from the police station to speak with you!”

“Oh,” Yuuri says, and he pushes his hair from his eyes to hold his forehead with his hand. “The police.”   
“Yuuri?” Viktor asks. 

Yuuri sets his teeth, tight. 

Yuuri nods. “I’m fine,” he says. “I’m fine. I promise.”

* * *

 

Yuuri walks out of the bedroom like a man to the gallows, and Viktor watches him go, feels an overwhelming desire to stop him, to go to his fate instead.

But Viktor just sits on the bed and watches him go.

Viktor stands up, alone in this place, and he looks around Yuuri’s bedroom. 

Yuuri younger, flushed with effort, in tight and strange clothes, holding medals, a surprised, detached sort of expression on his face. Pictures of him as a  _ child _ , holding hands with other children, smiling, his face open and free. 

There are books on the shelves and notes pinned to the walls. 

Things are spare and clean and unadorned. 

Viktor takes a deep breath. He adjusts his clothes. Without his coat on, in just his waistcoat and shirt, he feels somehow both overdressed and totally naked.  He wanted to make a good impression; wore the deep fuchsia coat with his cobalt waistcoat with the fine gold phoenixes embroidered over his chest. The dark trousers he’s wearing are fine and fitted to him and the shirt underneath is clean, white silk. He rests his hand on his stomach and carefully unbuttons his waistcoat. He tugs it off and hangs it over the back of the chair before the desk. 

Viktor slips out of the room and down the hall, 

There are a few small rooms, the doors closed or mostly closed. There’s the stairs that lead down, to the public part of the inn. 

Viktor creeps down them quietly, past the curtain between the private apartments and the public kitchen. 

The kitchen is empty and quiet. He creeps through it, fascinated by the shining metal surfaces and cracked wooden ones. He steps through another curtain and there’s the lobby again. There are a few people having a conversation over drinks. 

Viktor goes down a different hall, to a large, tiled room with damp air. And past that, baths.

It’s a bath. 

Viktor steps back out and into the lobby. His hands land on the cuffs at the ends of sleeves and he absently toys with the cufflinks, the faceted faces of the sapphires they’re set with hard and sharp. 

Viktor stands there, unsure. 

He feels a hand gentle and small on his shoulder.

He turns. 

“Oh,” he says. “I apologize, Madam.” 

Yuuri’s mother stands there, a good foot or so smaller than Viktor. Her hair follows the round curve of her face and body. Everything about her is very round, emphasized by the drape of her clothes and the shape of her glasses. She has a soft, comforting kind of smile. 

“Let me make you something to eat,” she says. “You must be so hungry.”

“Oh, no, please,” he says, quickly. “I’m fine, I insist--”

She shakes her head, though, and takes him by the arm and leads him through the lobby and back into the kitchen, where she pulls a stool from a nook in the kitchen away and sets Viktor down on it. She pulls a knife out from somewhere and a large piece of meat from a cabinet. 

Viktor finds himself unable to pull away, to argue with her. 

“I wanted to have this done for you, but then everything happened so quickly,” she says. Her voice is accented differently than Okukawa’s is. “If you are like Yuuri, you don’t take care of yourself. 

Viktor takes a deep breath and sighs a little. “He doesn’t, does he?” He says. 

She shakes her head. “Since he was a boy,” she replies. She cuts a thick steak from a round, heavy curve of pork. She cuts another. “He worries, so much. I think his brain, it never slows down. But he trusts you. I don’t think Yuuri has ever trusted someone as much as he trusts you.”

Viktor watches her cook, unsure what to say. 

“He trusts you, so I think I think I trust you, too,” she says. “Minako-chan, though.” She chuckles.

Viktor swallows. His throat feels dry.

_ You have no dominion here _ .

“But,” she says, looking back over to Viktor smiling, “Minako-chan is very funny. I have known her for more than thirty years, and she’s hardly aged a day.” 

The feeling is neither sinking nor soaring. It’s somehow both. He wishes he knew what to do. What to say. He wishes he knew what to do with her familiarity, with how easily she approaches him. With how easily they all enter his space and talk to him and interact with him. He wishes he knew how to be, when not being this prince. He wishes he knew what to say. 

“Madam,” he says.    
“Call me Hiroko-san,” she interrupts. “We’re family now. Maybe Katuski-san. Or okaasan. And don’t worry.” She smiles again, pulling a metal bowl from a cabinet and measuring a cup of flour into it. “Yuuri doesn’t always tell me everything right away. He gets so nervous. I think he thinks he's going to hurt me. But I still trust him." She measures salt and something else into the flour. Her head cocks to the side as she runs her hands through the flour. "It takes time. Maybe you're like Yuuri. Maybe you're scared you'll hurt us. But I know, you’ll tell us when you’re ready. I trust you and Yuuri, Viktor-chan.”

Viktor takes a deep breath. Looks at Yuuri's mother, at Hiroko-chan, who barely knows him but trusts him. Trusts him more than Okukawa every seems to have. Trusts him more than Viktor thinks he trusts himself. 

“Thank you,” he answers. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello kids i'm on twitter now @moosefeels come bother me


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